Synopses & Reviews
Review
"“One of the great innovators of late 20th and early 21st Century literature—especially with his incorporation of music and mathematics into fiction—and, for the English-speaking world, each additional translated work is more supporting evidence that Jonke’s place is secure.”" The Collagist
Review
"“He played with language like a child with soap bubbles, but the bubbles contained extremely refined and precise thought instead of air.”" Elfriede Jelinek
Review
"“He played with language like a child with soap bubbles, but the bubbles contained extremely refined and precise thought instead of air.”" Elfriede Jelinek
Review
"“One of the great innovators of late 20th and early 21st Century literature—especially with his incorporation of music and mathematics into fiction—and, for the English-speaking world, each additional translated work is more supporting evidence that Jonke’s place is secure.”" The Collagist
Synopsis
One of the loveliest riddles of Austrian literature is finally available in English translation: Gert Jonke's 1982 novel, Awakening to the Great Sleep War, is an expedition through a world in constant nervous motion, where reality is rapidly fraying. This enormously comic--and equally melancholic--tale is perhaps Jonke's masterwork.
About the Author
Gert Jonke is counted among Austria's most important authors and dramatists. Among other prizes, he received the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, the Erich Fried Prize, and the Grand Austrian State Prize for Literature. He died in 2009 at the age of 62.Jean M. Snook lives with her husband on the easternmost tip of North America, the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland, where she has taught German language and literature at Memorial University since 1984. She received the 2011 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for her translation of Gert Jonke’s The Distant Sound.